A Texas politician’s sex scandal could pave the way for the first member of Congress who got his start on YouTube.
The creator in question is named Brandon Herrera, but his 4.1 million YouTube subscribers also know him as “The AKGuy.” As that sobriquet attests, Herrera is a firearms enthusiast who uses his channel to share gun demos and military history lessons. As of March 2026, he’s also the de facto Republican nominee in Texas’ 23rd Congressional district.
This isn’t the first time Herrera has tried to run for Congress. Two years ago, he tried to primary Congressman Tony Gonzales, but the incumbent prevailed. Politically speaking, it looked as if Herrera would go down in history as one of the upstarts who ushered in a sea change known as the “influencer election.”
Subscribe to get the latest creator news
One scandal later, the race looks completely different. Gonzales has given up his reelection bid after admitting to an inappropriate relationship with a staffer who later died by suicide. Herrera, who made a second bid to oust Gonzales, was the Congressman’s only Republican challenger. Therefore, he is not only the district’s default GOP nominee, but also its likely Congressional rep. TX-23 is a solidly red area where President Trump won 57% of the vote in 2024.
The Texas Democrats, however, believe they can beat Herrera. All of a sudden, a district that wasn’t considered a toss-up has become a political battleground.
Here’s one burning question: Will Herrera’s opponents try to use his YouTube channel against him? The creator has been described as a “neo-Nazi,” and there are enough telling statements in his videos to support that accusation. If Democrats want to win in a deep-red district, that line of attack may be their best bet.
Herrera, though, is ready to defend his work on YouTube. He has borrowed elements of the platform’s drama culture and applied them to his Congressional campaign. His recent attack on Gonzales, for example, is styled like a creator callout video.
“I have a career on the internet doing comedy,” Herrera told The New York Times. “If their strategy is going to be clutching their fake pearls, and they don’t know the difference between jokes and what I actually believe, then this is going to be a very annoying few months.”
This is the power creators can harness when they choose to get into politics. It is not so easy to attack someone who makes a living by dishing out and responding to criticism. And when someone’s online persona blurs the line between reality and comedy, they can use plausible deniability as a defense mechanism.
We’re seeing a similar situation play out in Illinois’ ninth Congressional district, where progressive creator Kat Abughazaleh is also trying to become the first YouTuber in Congress. Abughazaleh’s anti-Israel stance has made her the target of AIPAC-funded attack ads, but she has used her channel to reflect those broadsides. Other politicians, such as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten, have used social media to spin and counter accusations made against them.
So if the Dems try to go after Herrera’s YouTube channel, he’ll be ready. The makeup of TX-23 makes it likely that Herrera will be elected in November, but even if both he and Abughazaleh fail to win their races, it’s only a matter of time before a creator makes it into Congress. If it can happen in Cyprus, it can happen here.
